Effectiveness of a grief programme for sudden bereavement: A logotherapy approach

As traditional Koreans tend to avoid talking about death, this study purposed to help university students overcome the grief caused by death by using their inner strength through logotherapy. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a sudden bereavement programme using a randomized controlled pretest-posttest experimental design. Participants were 48 university students recruited online and randomly assigned to either the experimental or the no-treatment control group. The experimental group received six 2-hour logotherapy sessions. Both groups completed pre-, post-, and one-month follow-up tests, which included measures of stress, meaning of life, quality of life, post-traumatic growth, and resilience. Over time, the experimental group experienced significantly lower stress and significantly higher meaning of life, quality of life, post-traumatic growth, and resilience compared to the control group. These results confirm the effectiveness of this logotherapy approach for these Korean students.